Physician diagnosed Asthma together with either current use of Asthma medication or the occurence of Asthm attacks and symptoms during the previous year.

ExclusionCriteria

Details

Individuals with smoking Index more than 100 will be excluded from this survey

Method of Generating Random Sequence

Other

Method of Concealment

Other

Blinding/Masking

Primary Outcome

Outcome

TimePoints

1. Proportion of all patients with ‘not well controlled’ asthma (ACT score less than or equal to 19).
2. Proportion of all patients with ‘controlled’ asthma (ACT score more than 19).

3 months

Secondary Outcome

Outcome

TimePoints

Current level of asthma control based upon ACT score (stratified by age), usage of diagnostic and monitoring tools for asthma, usage of different classes of asthma medication, level of healthcare utilization, level of work productivity and activity impairment (WPAI), relation between ACT score and WPAI outcomes, between ACT score and different classes of asthma medication, between ACT score and adherence to asthma medication.

The Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) guidelines advocates the management of asthma based upon the level of control rather than disease severity. The main goal of asthma treatment is to achieve and maintain clinical control. The Asthma Control Test (ACT) is a simple and validated tool to measure asthma control. Amongst the Indian patients (from Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Bengaluru) in Asthma Insights and Reality in Asia-Pacific (AIRIAP) 2006 survey, 70% adults and 48% children had ‘not well-controlled asthma’ as indicated by an ACT score of 5-19. Over the last 6 years it appears that access to diagnostic tests,monitoring tools and better treatment options for asthma has increased in India. Therefore we expect that asthma control has improved in the last 6 years.

This is a community based cross-sectional questionnaire survey of 550 asthma patients (ages 4 to 50 years) across 4 Indian cities, viz Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru and Kolkata. The aim of this survey will be to assess the current level of asthma control based upon the ACT score, the usage of diagnostic and monitoring tools for asthma, the usage of different classes of asthma medication (during 4 weeks preceeding this survey), the level of healthcare utilization (during 12 months preceding this survey), the level of work productivity and activity impairment (WPAI, during 7 days preceding this survey), the relation between ACT score and WPAI outcomes, between ACT score and different classes of asthma medication, between ACT score and adherence to asthma medication. This survey will be conducted by Ipsos Healthcare using cluster sampling methodology applied to 28 sampling points each in Mumbai (n=140) and Delhi (n=140) and 27 sampling points each in Bengaluru (n=135) and Kolkata (n=135). The results of this survey will help us to understand the extent to which these Indian cities have met GINA defined goals for asthma control (well controlled, total control). If the data indicate that these cities have not reached this level of control, the results will help us to identify and focus on those areas that need additional resource to achieve guideline defined asthma control. The results will also help us to understand whether the level of asthma control, the usage of diagnostic and monitoring tools for asthma, the usage of different classes of asthma medication and the level of healthcare utilisation has changed over the last 6 years, between 2006 and 2012.